Stefan Kanev – Productivity tricks

Stefan Kanev – Productivity tricks

Summary

Being able to do stuff is half of the story. Actually getting it done is as hard. Becoming productive in your environment is extremely important to you as a knowledge worker. Especially in the age of many distractions and short attention spans.

This session is about being productive. Since different things work for different people, it will cover a broad array of tricks and approaches. While everything won’t be applicable to anybody, everybody will find something useful.

The talk will have four parts:

General productivity. We start with overarching productivity “principles”, that are applicable to everyday life and not just the workplace. It includes organizing the things you have to do, tracking your thoughts and keeping stress levels low.

Workplace productivity. Next we will talk about a bunch of tricks you can apply to your job, be it a programmer or an executive. This includes keeping track of ToDos, focusing and staying ontop of the communication with your colleagues.

Programmer productivity. The third part will be about shipping code efficiently (meaning “high-quality and on time”). We will talk about tweaking your editor, using existing tools and how to approach writing code.

Building your own tools. If you want to take this to the next level, you have to start building your own tools. You have many options – using the shell, scripting your editor or even building small applications for your own use. The final part will give you ideas about what you can do.

Duration

Each section will be ten minutes long, followed by five minutes for questions and discussions. Total time will be one hour.

Who is it for?

While the first half will be useful to everybody, the second will be programmer specific. You need to code in order to fully appreciate it, but it will still provide good insight if you work with coders.

Directly applicable: Albert, Carol, Paul, Tamara, Tudor

Still useful: Anna, Cristina, Megan

Detailed schedule:

It’s in the abstract.

What will you learn?

Various tricks and principles for productivity. It will include the Pomodoro Technique, approaches to your “task basket”, existing tools and ideas on how to build your own.

Prerequisites

None for the first half and understanding code for the second.

What’s next?

You go home and apply that stuff. Some work, some don’t. You focus on the former and drop the latter. You come up with your own stuff. You share it with others. Ultimatelly, you get more stuff done in less time.